In the field of network computing, it is desirable for users, or customers, of websites to know how a website performs relative to similar websites, before the customer uses the website. For example, a customer wanting to purchase a particular good or category of goods via a network, such as the Internet, often has numerous choices of websites that sell the desired product. A buyer of a book can access various websites that sell books. Given the wide availability of similar websites, it is desirable for customers to have some means of distinguishing the websites when deciding which website to use. Some websites may be slower than others, less reliable than others, or more complicated to use than other websites. A customer may want to avoid these lesser quality websites and instead immediately access a better website. Likewise, it is desirable for operators of good websites to have a means of advertising that their websites are “better” than other, similar websites, as judged by an objective rating system.
Existing systems do not provide an efficient, effective way of rating websites based on performance. One existing method for evaluating websites is to receive feedback from customers of the website and to display this feedback on the website or on a related website that includes customer feedback for multiple websites. One problem with this method is that it requires input from actual customers, which takes time to gather and process, particularly to obtain a statistically meaningful sample. Another problem with this method is that the feedback is from self-selected customers. Only those customers who take the time to provide feedback are considered, and their opinions likely will tend to be more skewed one way or another. Also, customer feedback is always a subjective matter that relies on individual responses based on a limited experience with one website. One particular customer's experience with the website at one instance, for one transaction might not hold true for other customers. What is needed is a more reliable method of evaluating websites.